


iv. our bed after the war

by e_sattler



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Is Alive, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:01:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22105213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_sattler/pseuds/e_sattler
Summary: Sometimes, Cassian thinks that surviving Scarif is punishment for having the audacity to rebel.
Relationships: Amilyn Holdo/Leia Organa, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	iv. our bed after the war

Sometimes, Cassian thinks it might not have been so bad to die on Scarif. He can’t move his fucking legs without wanting to cut them off and Jyn is even more unbearable when she’s worried about him than she was when she wanted to kill him. 

This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. 

Sure, the Rebellion is grateful for their help but no one knows it was them. There’s no awards, no recognition that comes with having the audacity to live, and on the other side of it all, they lose the others in fray. Bodhi ends up in prison anyway and Chirrut doesn’t exactly flourish as much as he survives it. Baze’s last communication tells Cassian that they’re dealing with a healthy dose of failing faith and all Cassian can think is that he’s glad it’s them and not him. 

Jyn’s never worked an honest day in her life and it shows. She’s combative with Mothma and it’s not endearing in the least. It makes Cassian’s life demonstrably harder which he didn’t think was possible, all things considered. A few years after they get home, Cassian gets paired with a Rebel pilot named Shara Bey who drives him fucking insane. She’s got a kid and he thinks that’s unbelievably near sighted. He mostly stays out of the way while Bey and Cassian work except when he doesn’t, and it’s all Cassian can do to not lose his shit completely.

“Do you like to fly?” Poe is five years old with big brown eyes and way too much hair, and he scares the ever kriffin’ fuck out of Cassian. “My mom likes to fly.” 

“That’s nice, kid.” 

“You’re not.” Jyn snorts a laugh at that and Cassian rolls his eyes. Fuck.

They’re eating with Bey and her husband Kes Dameron that night when Holdo comes to sit with them and Cassian is sure that he’s actually on the ninth level of Mustafar until Organa shows up too and it’s a party. He looks at Dameron, pleading, who just shrugs and leaves Cassian to the wolves muttering something about having to put Poe to bed. 

“Andor, this is Rear Admiral Amilyn Holdo-” 

“We know each other,” Holdo and Cassian say in unison in the same goddamned tone of resignation and irritation that makes Cassian pull a face.

“What’s that supposed to-” 

“Ami-” 

Leia and Jyn are left looking at each other in mild confusion when Holdo and Cassian start squabbling in hushed Festan until Leia smiles and offers Jyn a piece of bread. 

“So,” she asks warmly. “How’re you liking it here so far?” 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Maybe dying on Scarif wouldn’t have been so bad, Cassian thinks as he tries to learn how to adapt to a normal life because the thing that no one tells you about almost dying is that it burns for a long time like an open wound. He wakes up in a cold sweat most nights, gasping for a full breath and tear soaked. Jyn isn’t much better and to be honest, Cassian is tired of getting punched in his sleep, so they go their separate ways after about six months. It’s not for lack of trying and he’s fairly certain he’s in love with her, but they’re both too fucked up to even begin to think about anything other than making it to the next day.

That’s the worst of it.

**********

This is the way it goes.

Cassian and Jyn have what is essentially a barely functional working relationship. She gives him unrelenting shit and he takes it because he doesn’t want the fight, but secretly, he enjoys it.

Most of the time.

What he doesn’t enjoy is when she’s trying to heckle him while they fuck. It’s all he can do sometimes to not stop mid stroke and leave her breathless and frustrated because holy shit, she just cannot shut the fuck up. He thinks it might be fear or something else and sometimes, he’ll humor himself by covering her mouth tightly with his hand so that he can just get off and get out.

This isn’t one of those times.

“That hurts.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Jyn-”

“You’re being difficult, just move.”

Cassian sighs. She’s not wrong but there’s not a chance that he’s going to tell her that and so he shifts enough to pull her up into his lap so that he can brace his weight on a palm against the wall behind her bed. It changes the angle enough that she can ride him and his thighs don’t hurt so much anymore, but he’s not into it and she can tell.

“What’s wrong?” Her tone is compassionate but it’s fake and when she rolls to the side, he’s already going soft. If she’s bothered, she doesn’t show it though she does settle on her back with her hand between her legs to finish what he started.

He doesn’t answer her.

Back in his own quarters, Cassian can’t help but play it over and over in his head. They’d had a nice time at dinner even though Jyn and Dameron had gotten into an argument about kriff knows what and when they’d gone back to her quarters, his every intention had been to be physical with her. Nothing’s the matter, he thinks, except it really fucking is.

His trauma comes and goes, mostly in sweat soaked nightmares where he has no mouth and cannot scream. Sometimes he gets startled by the errant loud noise and yeah, he’s playing a little fast and loose with a vibroblade every now and then but fuck it, this was what the Rebellion won them, right?

Right.

The next morning, he sees Jyn at role call and they make eye contact. He offers her a smile and she offers him one in return, but the exchange is exhausting and they haven’t even said anything yet. Hours later, they’re tucked up together in his bed this time and he’s doing a little better with her knees hooked over the crooks of his elbows and his face pressed into her neck to breathe heavy with each sharp thrust. He’s close and thinks he might actually be able to come this time when she taps on his shoulder for him to stop and covers her face with her hands when the tears start.

Cassian gets it. 

See, the thing about almost dying is that you spend the rest of your life thinking that you don’t deserve to live. Every action that comes after your miraculous survival is motivated by an intense kind guilt that reminds you of everything you left behind to be there. Cassian had made his peace on the beach at Scarif. He’d been ready and Jyn had been too. Now, they’re aimless, soldiers on a mission to the endless void of forever under the veil of the tenderness of death.

He doesn’t think he deserves it and he knows she doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, her voice wet behind her hands. He hasn’t moved from between her legs but he has let her knees settle at his sides and is propped up on his elbows to press gentle kisses to her knuckles, her wrist, her brow, and when he pulls her hands back to cup her jaw, her tear streaked cheeks.

“Don’t apologize,” he tells her. “I understand.”

He loves her in the way that violence loves an unsolvable problem, like calcium to water on the best of days, but he loves her all the same and he won’t apologize for that either. It has been nine years, four months, and nineteen days since Scarif and he still isn’t sure what exactly they won. He hears murmurs of some bullshit with the Karee Blockade Clutchn a few years back and has half a mind to get involved but it’s not his fight.

What the kriff _is_ his fight?

Jyn’s contentious at best the next day when Holdo comes to sit with them after the meeting of the high council and Cassian thinks that one day, he’s going to have to explicitly explain to Jyn that he and Amilyn were never together because she obviously doesn’t get that but that’s not the conversation.

“Bo-Katan Kryze wants to see you,” Amilyn says, her voice low between them.

Well, that’s got his attention.

“Kryze is a terrorist.”

“She’s not a terrorist, Cassian.”

“I’m sorry,” Jyn interrupts. “As in Mandalore?”

Amilyn and Cassian share an identical look before Amilyn continues. “There was a raid,” she says, and Cassian is already standing to leave. “Kryze says a Moff has the Darksaber.”

“Why’re you telling me this?” Cassian snaps, though he can’t deny the way his heart is pounding. “What information could I possibly-”

“There’s a Mandalorian named Din Djarin who was rescued from Fest as a child by Death Watch under Kryze’s command. He was the last person who saw the Moff on Nevarro.” Amilyn shakes her head. “Just talk to her.”

She’s gone before Cassian has a chance to respond, leaving him and Jyn in silence.

Fuck.

“Where’re you going?” Jyn asks as Cassian picks up his bag with a shake of his head. 

“I have no kriffin’ idea.”


End file.
